Starship Troopers 2: Crack in the System
by Gandalf the Beige
Summary: What are the orgins behind the Military government on earth? How do the bugs eat? And how the heck did the Plasma bugs get created? This earth ain't your grandpappies Heinlein, so I moved this fic finally ABANDONED
1. Surgury

Starship Troopers: Crack in the System

Disclaimer: I do not own the movie Starship Troopers… and I don't want to own it, rights nor a copy. The plot was shaky, the acting wooden and the premise utter shite. But it got me to think: how did a bunch of militaristic meatheads like the 'veterans' gain control of the entire planet, and why are there hoards of large insects on a planet apparently devoid of life? This is my theory, I hope you like it.

**Late 23rd Century, Klendathu**

The tunnels were dark. That could be seen as the natural order of things, lack of sunlight and all. Giant insectoid warriors meandered in rough file through the larger halls while small workers crawled through tight tunnels tending to the workings of the hive. Having gotten this far, a member of the mobile infantry would be most likely being taken to a brain bug to have his brain sucked out or be dead, food for the warriors. Going further into the tunnels, a friendly would begin to find things not typical of an insect colony.

First off, there were strings of lighting fixtures running along tunnels with level floors, fixtures that looked strangely mechanical. Secondly were the humanoids rushing through these corridors carrying racks of small serum vials, each filled with genetic material for creating ever stronger and faster assault insects than the last batch did. These were the Klendathi, a people who had once basked in the wealth and splendour of being the sovereigns of 5000 worlds, and a population of over ten trillion citizens. They had also had strong ties with Earth, back when its strong democratic tradition was still upheld by all people of eligible age.

The main reason they were here, however, was not to invade anyone. This planet had once been their home, a world of lush plant and animal life with myriad diversity… before the Big Boil, a thermal cascade that had scorched everything down to the bedrock and had boiled the entire water table. Terraforming and repopulation were the order of the day, but someone always had to crash the party: in this case Earths new regime. They had caused the Big Boil, and had recently fielded hundreds of thousands of poorly equipped troops onto the planets surface to meet the insectoid defenders of the colonies in open war… an incredibly one sided conflict if there ever was one.

The point was that these humans were clearly not the individualistic bull-headed free spirits that the Klendathi had learned to love in their 120-year relationship. They had become almost as mindless and quick to fight as the insects their former allies genetically engineered. And much deeper in, two surgeons had just cracked the code of this strange behaviour.

"Well I'll be damned. The Colonel was right!" Said the middle-aged female as she beheld what lay in the surgical tray. It appeared to be a small square of silicon and not much else. "This explains how they were able to break the sprits of all the men and women that they're throwing to the insectoid masses. What about her?" The male, apparently in his mid twenties, motioned his head to indicate the female human with the shaved head and surgical scar along the side of her head who was unconscious in the surgical chair.

"The colonel said he wants to get her on the up and up once she's awake. After that… well, its up to her really." The female replied as she updated the patients' chart. "Why did he insist on faking this ones death? She doesn't seem very spectacular."

"He said something about her having 'spirit' or something. _I _think he watched too many DreamWorks ™ films as a kid… not a bad thing though." He added hurridly.

And if the observer had been able to read Klendathi, he would have noticed the name of the patient: Drina "Dizzy" Flores.

Drina in Spanish means "Helper and Defender of mankind" so it makes sense… sort of.


	2. Capture

Starship Troopers 2: Crack in the System

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the franchise… movie was crap and I never read the book (have heard the general premise, think the earning-the-vote thing goes too far and don't like that particular books apparent slant).

Just to give you a clue though, the chip in Dizzies head was… disabled very early on, so the whole "trust the State' thing never really set in so well. Couple that with family stories hostile toward sanctioned history and the government never really had a chance.

And _yes_, I know Heinleins motivations, and the differences between the versions. (I mean… who _wouldn't_ enjoy Geonosian/ Verpine equivalents battling soldiers in really tiny mechs? Really good concept… didn't like the societal concept much though)

That's why the society is referred to later on as "Heinlein on speed, blow and… _possibly_ smack, although we aren't 100 sure."

This fanfiction is based on the _movie_ version, and tells how it could have come about. Although the Heinlein meritocracy is palatable on certain occasions and in small doses: such the Klendathi governing councils. Meaning that everyone of age can vote on issues, but you have to have _done_ something (economic, agriculture, military or, in the case of the general assemblies, take an advanced University Civics course) to even have a chance to get voted onto those councils.

Hope you like.

* * *

**2 months later, Ticonderoga Fleet Battle station**

It began with a finger flipping a switch deep in the Stations janitorial recesses.

Dreams were common enough in the sleeping heads of Mobile Infantry grunts. Their three main themes were 1) anger, 2) blood, and finally 3) the overwhelming feeling that the government was looking out for you despite all evidence to the contrary. The last one was especially useful when you, for instance, had just found out that your childhood friend, brilliant and psychic, was treating you as nothing but a number after taking up psychopathy as a hobby in the Games & Theory Dept. It helped to numb the pain of betrayal.

But it could also be said that in the sleeping head of one Lieutenant "Johnnie" Juan Delmont Rico, things were forming that had not appeared in the head of an earth soldier for generations. One odd thing was the distinct lack of the colour red. In its place were various shades of green. This was because in his dream, Rico was patrolling not the windswept dustpans of Klendathu, but a lush hardwood forest high on a hillside, overlooking a wide river valley and green plain. It wasn't on Earth either, because very few hardwood shrubs back home had hexagonal leaves. It was probably some far off alien world where PanGalatic Lumber, Petroleum and Useless Novelty would probably be setting up shop soon.

Shame really…

Then, beyond all explanation, he heard _it_.

"Johnny…."

But there wasn't anyone around, was there? On a hunch he began walking toward an elm-like tree that had a hollow at eye- height.

"Johnny..." It came again.

The voice was becoming clearer, more familiar, more feminine… it _couldn't_ be… could it?

Nearing the hollow, the sound of chattering exoskeleton began emanating, a sound he had learned to fear on the sands, but in dreamy woodland, it instead invoked wonderment. He peered inside… and a shiny red, black and yellow beetle, with a body the size of a walnut but legs spanning eight inches, sprang out and forced him back. It was creepy; it was chattering, it was… strangely familiar.

BLLLLLAAAAAAARRRRRMMM 

It was then that he was woken; the P.A. sounding out like a chorus of brazen throated trumpets. From the speakers in the barracks they rang, and again from the concourse and the hall, echoing from every room and corner over and over again. Another day had come for the Mobile Infantry, or, as some had dubbed them: "bug fodder".

But did it have to be at 5 AM?

They showered, dressed were in the briefing room by 530 hours. Apparently, even though they'd gotten flashy new armaments, vivisected a brain bug and blown more holes in the sand than ever before, they were still losing ground. What else, some of the fatalities were coming back with unidentified wounds, wounds that could never have been caused by any of the known Bug phenotypes… and then there were those who weren't coming back at all, not even in bits.

The mission would be for three squads to advance down a canyon, securing the route for a detonation team to take out a seemingly unguarded plasma bug position. The officers were privately celebrating that the bugs would leave such an obvious crack in their defences, taking it as a sign that the brain-bug capture was finally paying off. The rest were saying it was just another trap.

As it turned out, the rest were right.

**18 hours later, Central Canyon lands, Klendathu.**

The sounds of weapons fire and screams ripped into the night. Hoppers launched themselves from the tops of the canyon walls to decapitate members of Alpha and Beta Squads while a wave of Warriors surged against hails of laser fire to shred human flesh. All in all, it was just another night on Klendathu.

Or maybe it wasn't.

The only people not getting attacked were what now constituted Rico's Roughnecks. They were firing madly into the ranks of warrior bugs and at the cliff tops, while simultaneously backing into a box canyon, closed save for a slope of loose gravel to their left. It was _supposed_ to lead right into an artillery position. There was another strange thing: Rico was a known target to the bugs. Why wouldn't they go after him?

The answer was looking down at him through a spotting scope from the top of the gravel inclination. The figure was wearing a reddish brown cloak and hood, and was mounted upon a rather dark, non-descript horse with about a dozen other similarly clad persons in the darkness. The lead figure, the one wearing a dirty, ragged, brown, wide-brimmed hat instead of a hood, exhaled smoke from a cigarette butt, its red glow illuminating an inhuman face, before turning to the first figure. "This the one?"

"Positive… Sir." Said the first figure, putting the scope away. The hat wearer then proceeded to crush out his cigarette on the palm of his thick leather glove before tossing it aside and pulling out some sort of remote signalling device. At the touch of a button the Arachnids suddenly stopped committing carnage, much to the Roughnecks astonishment. Even more astonishing, they began retreating, though not before rendering the other two squads to utter hamburger.

Then the lead rider pulled something out of a saddle holster. It was a clunky, modular construction consisting of a wide, stocky barrel, a pistol grip and a folding stock with some complicated looking canisters and stuff in-between. Out of a saddlebag he produced a small, spherical device, on which he slid a panel into a certain position, making segments on it blink green. Said device was then inserted into the aforementioned barrel, from whence it was subsequently launched from with the _thump_ of pressurized gas. It landed in the midst of the confused squad, who only comprehended it for about a second and a half before it exploded into an expanding ring of green fluorescence, causing the Mobile Infantry to collapse into an unconscious state. Non-injurious Stun grenades… what would they think of next?

10 minutes later, the riders, the unconscious roughnecks and the bugs had deserted the scene, leaving nothing but debris, bodies… and a crushed lump of paper and tobacco that some sharp-eyed deputy coroner would notice in the disturbed gravel on the top of the slope and get a propaganda-infected mind to wander.

They always _said_ that the Colonels habit would lead to trouble.

**5 days later, secret location**

The first thing Juan Rico saw when he awoke from a drug-induced stupor was the face of the doctor standing over him at his bedside. Two things were striking about this doctor was immediately apparent. One: the doctor was a woman and two: she wasn't human.

She had skin the colour of honey, with green squiggles appearing from just below the hairline up toward the crown of the scalp. A slim, slightly flattened nose with demure nostrils was positioned inside a face whose cheeks were high and thin, and had a thin, pointed chin. Actually, outside of the corrective goggles she wore over her eyes (the nose was too flat to support conventional spectacles), her greying brown hair being pulled into a severe bun and her having an 'it's all business' look on her face, she could have been a real looker.

"Ah, Mr. Rico. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you're awake." She commented with a rather clinical detachment before heading away to another bed. Jerking fully awake, Rico found his wrists bound by shackles, and secured by metal cord to the cot-frame. "Just a precaution: the guards insisted." The doctor said, even though she hadn't turned from checking an intravenous tube at the other bed. From what he could see of the figure on the bed, Rico could recognize it as Mani, a corporal from his squad.

"Is he alright?" Rico had absolutely no idea where he was or what this species was. Was he a prisoner, was he rescued? Even though there was a vase of strange flowers at a bedside table, this did nothing for his nerves.

"His body is fine… it's his brain that got fried." She turned back to Juan. "No need to worry; we _don't_ shoot our disabled. And it isn't as if he's a vegetable. He can still see and hear. Mr. Mani is actually the luckiest out of the three: he still has some use in his fingers and his diaphragm wasn't affected. His speech and motion centres got the brunt of the shock."

"Shock from what? What happened to us?" This was getting frightening. Strange environment, strange species and strange injuries did not put a persons mind at ease.

"1500 volts through the Frontal Lobe." Said the doctor. A commotion coming from beyond the door drew her attention. "I'll be one minute." She proceeded to stride toward the door, open it and tell the corporal outside to keep the noise down. But then she turned back toward him. "It seems to your lucky day, Mr. Rico: You have a visitor". She held the door open… and in stepped the absolutely last person he had ever expected to see again.

"Hey Johnny." Said the very attractive, very athletic and very _alive_ Drina Flores as she got to his bedside. Her hair was short (1) and a scar was barely visible on the scalp beneath.

Johnny, overcome by this obvious shift in the alive/dead duality, could only produce what sounded like a balloon leaking air.

"Is something wrong?" Dizzy asked innocently, as the doctor watched to see if more sedative was needed.

"You're _dead_. I _saw_ you _die_!" Rico managed to breathe out. It wasn't much, but it gave some insight into his current mental state.

"Correction:" Began Dizzy, actually looking amused at this. "You saw something that _looked_ like me die. These people are geniuses when it comes to genetics! The thing you saw was… a duplicate, a robot frame sheathed in cloned tissue and run by an intricate computer brain. She only existed to die and leave a beautiful corpse. And thus, I'm here."

But how are you here? In the first place, I mean." Asked Juan, a bit more coherent.

"Well… do you remember George, the janitor on the Ticonderoga?"

"Yeah. Isn't he the one constantly griping about when his 'grandpappy' had the vote? The old man?" This was getting interesting. How could an old codger like George Smith be involved in this?

"That's him, and his son of course, Jacob. Well… they're _spies_: infiltrators belonging to the League of Earth Ex-patriots, humans living beyond the Spiral Divide. It's actually really interesting how it happened."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute! Humans _beyond_ the Spiral Divide? We don't have any colonies out there; our range barely even reaches Arkell. Besides, that's wilderness!" Confusion was becoming a definite theme in this conversation.

"Oh, they're not colonies… not _official Earth-sponsored_ colonies anyway." Came a new voice, from the corner behind Rico. Juan turned his head, and saw a figure lounging on a chair, wearing a tattered poncho, his face hidden by the brim of his hat. "And, contrary to what you've been told, the space beyond the divide is _very_ civilized: Over one hundred thousand worlds, thousands of intelligent species, hundreds of governments and confederations… and not a single division between them."

The apparition rose from the chair and removed his hat. His face (underneath the light brown hair of a badly overgrown crew-cut) was that of the smoking horseman, a more rugged, wider, essentially male version of the good doctor, his skin being darker by several degrees than that of the female, perhaps signifying a tan. His nose was much broader than the doctors though just as flat and the squiggles on his scalp were a faded grey instead of bright green. His seven-foot frame was slightly long in the limb and muscular, giving the impression of someone who had lived most of his life outdoors. And the look on his face… was a combination of amusement, curiosity and a little confusion. "What's your name, soldier?"

At first stunned into silence, Rico stuttered out, with Dizzy nudging him, "Rico… Juan Rico, Buenos Aries. Lieutenant in the Mobile Infantry… sir."

'You have a good eye for brass, boy." The figure held out his hand. "Col. Markenta Slensu. And do not even _think_ of laughing; once upon a time we would have thought names like Rico, Flores and Zim were the pinnacle in knee-slapping humour."

Mentioning Zim was his first mistake.

"Wait… Zim? He's still alive? Where is he?" Questions began filling his head again after being momentarily stunned by the Colonels appearance.

Dizzie sighed. "Johnnie… I wanted to… explain it to you gradually, but you have to know. You and Zim are, technically, prisoners." She interrupted him in advance of his inevitable outburst. "I was too! But after they showed me the stuff they have on file, I _joined_ them. And the surgery was top notch, didn't feel a thing on the rebound."

"Surgery? What the hell did they do to us?!" Rico had risen to the level of the frantic, which, considering what he had just heard, made sense.

"Excuse me, but I think that the patient has had enough excitement for today." Came the voice of the doctor.

After the two people had left, the doctor went to the patients' bedside and sat on a vacated chair. "Mr. Rico. Before I inform you of the fate of your comrades, I must ask you: do you know of anything your government has ever implanted into your body?"

Rico had never really thought about this, but tried remembering through the traces of drug-fog. "Well… when we're babies we get a tracking chip implanted deep in the brain. It's to help locate kidnap victims… part of the whole J.E.E.P. program: **Justice that is Efficient, Effective and Punctual** or so they call it". Juan felt a little silly talking about a program aimed at child safety.

"But, here's the question:" the doctor asked, "Why would they implant the device in that specific spot? Why not into the thoracic…" she noticed the patients incomprehension "chest cavity? Or into one of the long bones or deep in the intestine?"

"Well…" pondered Juan, thinking more deeply than he had ever done before. "In the brain… it would be harder for non-medical kidnappers to remove it without lasting harm, therefore decreasing the victims ransom value." He paused. "Did I just say all that?"

The doctor let a smile crack through her frigid façade. "Indeed you did. And, if I may say so, your critical thinking skills are quite nice. Are you sure you didn't read that somewhere?"

"Nope. They always elaborated on _why_ they put it in, but never the reason for _where_." Juan was beginning to get an inkling of something that her had never gotten before: an actual curiosity of what those devices were actually for. And it frightened him. "What are you implying?" He asked slowly.

"Just that your government might have had motives other than public safety in mind when it implanted those devices. That we have found that said devices… do other things than merely emit a homing signal." The doctor hesitated before continuing. "After we extracted the device from Ms. Flores' frontal lobe through traditional invasive surgery, we learned from her that they were implanted through the use of medical micro-borer tubules (2). Since we employ a similar device for extracting biopsies, we thought that removal would be quick for all involved."

She sighed. "We were wrong. On the first five members of your squadron, we accidentally triggered a self-destruct mechanism in the chip, killing them with varying degrees of violence. One of our better surgeons received facial injuries from the first explosion."

The doctor got up. "After careful thought, we surrounded the remaining 5 subjects in a makeshift Electromagnetic field to effectively smother the explosive. It was there that we found that the devices possessed an apparent second countermeasure: a micro-shock generator, seemingly installed to damage the subjects' brain tissue in case of infiltration. That's is what happened to Mr. Mani here, along with two others, one of whom doesn't have complete diaphragm control anymore."

"Wait a minute: you said five died and three wound up like this. If I'm Number 10… then who was number 9?" Asked Johnnie.

"Your 'sadistic mutha' of a drill sergeant, as per Ms. Flores and Private Jeru. As soon as you are up and ready, I suggest you and Drina take a trip down to the stockade to see Mr. Zim." She went back to a corner desk and began filling out forms.

"Why's he there? And since I'm a prisoner too, why aren't I there?" His brain was becoming clearer than it had ever been.

"Because, Mr. Rico…" The Chief Surgeon of Canyon Colony said as she looked up from her work. "You haven't tried biting my fingers off yet."

* * *

**Footnotes**

1. In homage to _Roughnecks_, a most excellent CG series which, while giving us camera-boy, suits, real villains in the bugs and making Carl both likable and a non-nazi, did sod all for the Federations political leanings.

2. Similar to Borg Assimilation Tubules, but much more delicate.


End file.
